Osprey On Highway to Tropics

By Rob Bierregaard

At seven weeks old, Henrietta was tagged, allowing researchers to track her migration.

Traffic is heavy and slow on the Osprey Highway to the Tropics, as my colleague Mark Martell calls Florida, Cuba and Hispaniola. We currently have one transmitter-carrying bird, Saco, in Florida; three — North Fork Bob, Snowy and Buck — in Cuba; and Katbird and Senor Bones in the Dominican Republic. Henrietta arrived in Colombia on Sept. 26, just nine days after leaving her natal area on Martha’s Vineyard. She’s now on the shores of the Gulf of Venezuela where Buck first settled in 2009.
Sanford, our Westport River adult male, wins this year’s last-one-out-turn-off-the-lights award. He’s still in Massachusetts. Last year he began migration on Oct. 2.
I’ve posted the overview map with all the birds’ tracks and current locations at www.bioweb.uncc.edu/bierregaard/migration11.htm